Solar inverters are part of photovoltaic installations that are used to feed electrical power into an electrical mains system. For this purpose, the photovoltaic installations have one or more photovoltaic generators, each of which includes one or more solar modules. Each solar module may have a multiplicity of interconnected solar cells. The electrical energy which is generated photovoltaically by the solar cells is then supplied to a solar inverter, which converts the DC voltage supplied to it to a regulated, standardized mains voltage.
The solar inverters typically include a number of heat-generating electronic components, for example low-frequency transformers, inductors and power semiconductors. Since the solar inverters are generally disposed outside of buildings, they must also be protected against the ingress of dust, dirt and water spray in order, for example, to meet the requirements for ingress-protection class IP 54 (e.g. dust protection, splash protection).
In principle, the electronic components in the solar inverter can be cooled by passing cooling air directly past the components. However, this does not allow adequate protection of the electronic components against dust and moisture. It is therefore common for the solar inverter to be provided with a heat sink through which the cooling air is passed, and to which electronic components may be thermally conductively connected. Since, in this case, the electronic components do not come into contact with the cooling air, the cooling provided by the heat sink is not always adequate.
It would be desirable to develop an inverter system including a unique configuration of components to thermally manage a number of heat-generating electronic components, while maintaining an ingress protection of the electrical components.